


Two Choices

by Tsyele



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, The Masked Empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 07:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3479828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsyele/pseuds/Tsyele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperLavellan/pseuds/KeeperLavellan">KeeperLavellan</a> recently released <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2760119/chapters/7618250">“Call me Imshael”</a>, the 66th chapter of Apotheosis. Because she wished to see it and I have a penchant for fucked-up fictional situations, I rewrote her chapter through the POV of Solas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Choices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KeeperLavellan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperLavellan/gifts).



During their whole journey through Emprise du Lion, Rial had been acting brash and petty and childish. When she didn’t sour the polite conversations he tried having with Cassandra, spouting passive-aggressive remarks and twisting the meaning of whatever he had said, Rial unleashed her pent up anger on anything that she considered an enemy. Though Cole kept silent, the look he sometimes gave him told him everything. It was Solas’s fault, wasn’t it? In her mind he’d turn her back into a child.

And while he admired that wild side of her, primal and animalistic like his younger self, the way she’d been unleashing it since… was disturbing in its sadism, even more so knowing Solas was the reason for her extreme change in behavior.

Their passing through Suledin Keep was quick and furious. Their party advanced through its labyrinthine levels, razing anything that came across them, Rial helming their raw display of power and might. The red templars holed up in Suledin never stood a chance, and soon the ancient elven fortress fell into silence, only interrupted by the echoes of the freezing wind. But as they walked up the stairs to the upper courtyard of the keep, Solas felt the familiar tingle of magic, swirling wild in a pulsing aura. When Rial stopped atop the steps, a lone figure stood waiting for them. Human, but not quite.

The strange man opened his arms in welcome. A truce. His aura washed across every direction, lapping and filling them with the energy of the Fade as no mortal mage ever could. His lips pulled into an unsettling grin. _A spirit._ “Call me Imshael.” The _spirit._

Magic crackled all around, despite the submissive display, and the furs draped across Solas’s shoulder rose to meet the electricity that hung static in the dry air waiting to erupt into a storm and lash out in white lightning. Imshael’s aura was familiar to the skin of his body, and Solas had a feeling his own magic was known to the Forbidden One.

Rial righted herself to face him. “You’re a demon,” she said, confident and focused.

“Choice. Spirit,” he corrected, punctuating the words in annoyance, then slipping into a creamy and pleasant tone, so comforting it was unnerving, “And, true to my name, I will show you that you have a choice.”

“I like having choices.”

Rial was walking towards him, and each step she took was a step too close for Solas. Imshael glanced at him, brow furrowed for half a second, until the dawn of recognition crossed through his face and his lips curled up in a smirk.

“Well then, you’re going to _love_ me,” the Forbidden One said as he kept his gaze on Solas, before turning to elven woman in front of him.

They had to play. _Solas_ had to play. The wrong – or right – word from Imshael could potentially unravel everything he built across the ages, everything he’d planned for the future, just as Rial almost did to him. He’d cautioned her before in dealing with spirits, so the words fell off his mouth before he thought them thoroughly through. A fixture for him, lately. “It rarely hurts to listen, but trust is another matter entirely.”

“I recall the lesson, _hahren.”_ Her neck twitched imperceptibly, but never came to turn. The voice that came was spiteful, hurt masked underneath a vicious anger rightfully directed at him. How could he allow himself to make so many mistakes?

Da’len. The word hung in the back of his mind, never to come out of his lips. This mistake he would refrain himself from making again.

Imshael met his gaze, returning to his face that wicked smile. Solas seethed at the thought of his pain and the pain of his _vhenan_ fueling the Forbidden One’s enjoyment and giving him leverage in his twisted little game.

After the briefest of silences, the spirit spoke again, “Simple. We don’t fight, and I grant you power, shower you with riches, maybe virgins, or…” he chuckled until something else caught his attention. Imshael stepped towards her, lifting his hand to her face, “what’s something else that starts with _V?”_

Rial held her ground, unrelenting, as the Forbidden One gazed in utter fascination and stroked his fingers through her skin. Solas’s hands clenched into fists as rage coursed through his body. His _vhenan_ stood with her back to him, while another touched the skin he should be touching, and saw the face he should be seeing. And now the demon poked at the pain of loss and tempted her with a past she did not understand. Hoarfrost started covering his fists as the magic pooled on them.

“The magic still… lingers.”

“So the famed Imshael is a desire demon after all.”

“It was worth a shot.” Solas had stood ready to snap, but Rialwas smarter than that, and when Imshael backed away, so did his magic. He reprimanded himself for constantly underestimating his _vhenan’s_ indomitable spirit when he should’ve known better by now.

The demon continued, “Alright, then, back to my original offer. What’s your choice?”

“I choose to let you go.”

Cassandra was fidgeting in place, clearly uncomfortable by their conversation, but Solas gave her a look that told her to let the game play out. Hypocritical. It was an advice he could barely heed.

“That’s… atypical. What do you want in return?”

“If I took something in return, I wouldn’t be making a choice, would I? I’d be accepting a bribe. But if I simply let you go, I’d be choosing something far more interesting.”

“More interesting than virgins?”

“Friendship.”

Ordinarily, such a statement would render Solas proud. He’d grown to admire Rial’s honest acceptance of spirits, befriending and learning from them, but Imshael was no ordinary spirit and what he could give her was not ordinary knowledge.

“Honestly, you are the worst judge of character.”

“I know.”

“You really don’t.”

Imshael glanced briefly at Solas, his gaze mocking, daring him to slip. When Solas kept himself impassive, the Forbidden One took a step closer to Rial to tilt her head with a gentle finger under her chin, and leaned in towards his _vhenan_ , taking her mouth in a kiss. Solas’s mana pooled at him instantaneously as the cold jealous rage settled in, ice slowly setting on his clothes and skin, hands ready to strike as the air around him cooled. While hers had shut in reflex, Imshael’s eye popped up and fixed itself on Solas, a look that pierced through and spoke to the core of him. He had two choices: to act on his emotions now and betray his plans and let all the sacrifices be for naught, or to rein in the swirling passions that since ages past threatened to undo his resolve. He stayed his hand and stopped the flow of mana, keeping his aura swollen in place, as he considered the options he was given. Solas heard the distinct sound of a sword being unsheathed. He glanced at Cassandra who’d gripped her weapon in reaction to the surge of magic in the air. She stopped mid-sheath as she searched in his emotionless expression for a sign to go. She found none. Imshael grinned at their display and closed his eyes as Rial gasped into his mouth. Was she feeling the swelling of his magic?

The bitter taste of jealousy filled Solas’s mouth and coursed down to his gut as his _vhenan_ arched her body against the Forbidden One as both their lips opened to give way to something deeper. He wanted to end it, to snap this pretender demon in half and banish him back to the Beyond. He wanted to take Rial in his arms and claim her again as his _vhenan_ and only his. He wanted to tell her the truth. He wanted to live in the lie. He wanted wanted wanted, so many things, so very much. But what he wanted was not what he needed and what he needed was what he should’ve always done: stay distant. So he chose to simply watch. Solas watched the kiss that seemed to go on forever. Seconds stretched into days that stretched into an eternity of wrongness where his place was switched with another. When the agony finally ended, he wondered what she was thinking. Had she enjoy it? Had Imshael poked into their memories to kiss her like they used to? Had she thought about Solas? Or had she not think about him at all? The questions raced through his mind, questions he should not have asked nor he should care the answers to.

The presence of a spirit creeped behind him as his mana drew back.

Solas thought on the patronizing advice he’d given Rial just a few days ago, and wondered just how much she’d taken it into heart. _Harden your heart into a cutting edge. “Na vhenan him dar’mi emma in elgar sahlin.” And now your heart is the edge cuts through my soul._ The voice of Cole – who’d kept back, silent and unassuming – came forward to complete the thought in Solas’s head. He had to be more careful now that blood from the new wound seeped through old scars. Cole was drawn to the hurt and only retreated once it had been rooted out. If it need be, Solas would have to shut him out. Heartbreak and solitude was the price for the wise and the revolutionary.

“No, no, don’t be modest. He’s right, you’re very good at it,” Imshael said, turning his gaze to him and wearing that disgusting grin.

And suddenly he felt all eyes on him – all except the pair that mattered – waiting for a reaction that he couldn’t show. Solas steadied his breath and stilled his expression, locking away the passions that couldn’t be allowed. The Forbidden One acknowledged the choice.

“Alright, Herald of Andraste, since you’ve made this so droll, I accept.” When the pause prolonged a bit too much, Imshael continued, “Oh, don’t act suspicious now, this was your idea. I’ve never had a friend before, you’ll have to show me the ropes. Do I go ahead and stab you in the back now, or is it customary to wait?”

Rial laughed, as if indifferent to the fact that she’d just befriended a Forbidden One, or that she’d just kissed his human form, or that he’d just planned to betray her, or that he’d just made a jab at the betrayal that kept following her. “Let’s wait.”

“Another time, then!”

In a flash, Imshael took the form of a raven, disappearing in a puff of acrid smoke that burned in their lungs. Although imperceptible to the unaware, Solas knew her enough to see that Rial tried to hide the second thoughts that threatened to shake through the core of her, meeting her hands to her downward face as a feather fell across her booted feet.

After a moment, she spoke.

“Go raise a blighted flag over this place, I need a minute.” Rial’s voice was not soothing and warm like it used to sound before, like it was when in their moments of happiness she whispered the thousand “ _Ar lath ma’s”_ in his ears. Now it was cold and chilling like the ice that kept the Elfsblood from flowing.

Cassandra was the first to move, keeping her stare on her Inquisitor in a silence only punctuated by the sound of the Seeker’s boots crunching down the fluffy snow. Cole tugged lightly at Solas’s shoulder before following the warrior. He considered for a moment to reach out to Rial with his aura, but at the slightest extension of his mana he sensed hers retreating, and he felt foolish and selfish for even attempting. He was not wanted.

He followed the others up the tower, slow and dejected and so very tired.

Solas stopped atop the stairs, turning back to his _vhenan_ , and watched her in bitter silence as she picked up the single black feather at her feet.

**Author's Note:**

> I kept the 'Solas is Felassan' and the 'Forbidden Ones are the Forgotten Ones' references intentionally vague in order not to contradict any canon, since those theories are largely speculation, and to work with most theories out there. I actually don't even agree with KeeperLavellan on the Solas/Felassan or Forbidden Ones/Forgotten Ones (I mean, how humiliating would it be for a dreaded Forgotten One to be defeated by the Warden with a single Mana Clash?), but the setting for this story was so interesting and the challenge to write so enticing... And, hey, I can work with what I'm given.
> 
> I'm so sorry for butchering the elvish, I just can't wrap my head on that awful, awful grammar. If someone has a better phrasing for what I meant to say, please tell me!


End file.
